The SuperSmart Grid (SSG) is a hypothetical wide area electricity network connecting Europe with northern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, and the

IPS/UPS The IPS/UPS (), also widely known as the Russian grid is a wide area synchronous transmission grid, the Russian Unified Power System (UPS; ) and the Integrated Power System (IPS; ) portion of the network being the national networks of Azerbaij ...

system of CIS countries. The system would unify

super grid A super grid or supergrid is a wide-area transmission grid (electricity), network, generally trans-continental or multinational, that is intended to make possible the trade of high volumes of electricity across great distances. It is sometimes a ...

and

smart grid The smart grid is an enhancement of the 20th century electrical grid, using two-way communications and distributed so-called intelligent devices. Two-way flows of electricity and information could improve the delivery network. Research is main ...

capabilities into a comprehensive network. There are no planned locations for infrastructure or schedule explicitly for the SSG; rather, the name is used to discuss the economic and technological feasibility of such a network and ways in which it might gain political support. The ambitious upgrade and unification of current

transmission Transmission or transmit may refer to: Science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Transmission (mechanical device), technology that allows controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual tra ...

and/or

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

grids finds support among advocates of large scale utilization of alternative energy, and as well as advocates of enhanced

energy security Energy security is the association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption (as opposed to household energy insecurity). Access to cheaper energy has become essential to the functioning of modern ...

for Europe. The SSG proposal was initiated by the European Climate Forum and at the

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK, ) is a German government-funded research institute addressing crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts, and sustainable development. Ranked among the to ...

by Antonella Battaglini and colleagues.

History

The concept of a "super grid" is not new the term itself was used to describe the emerging unification of the Great Britain grid in the 60s. Europe has been unifying its grids since the 1950s and its largest unified grid is the

synchronous grid of Continental Europe The Continental Europe Synchronous Area (CESA), formerly known as the UCTE grid, is one of the largest synchronous electrical grids in the world, primarily operating in Europe. It is interconnected as a single phase-locked mains frequency el ...

serving 27 countries. There are studies and ongoing discussions regarding creation of a synchronous grid spanning 13 time zones which would result from the unification the UCTE grid with that of the IPS/UPS Interconnection serving Russia, Belarus and other countries of the former Soviet Union. Such mega systems are experiencing scaling problems as a result of network complexity,

transmission congestion In power engineering, transmission congestion occurs when overloaded transmission lines in an electrical grid are unable to carry additional electricity flow due to the risk of overheating. During grid congestion, the transmission system operator ...

, and the need for rapid diagnostic, coordination and control systems. Advocates of schemes such as the SuperSmart Grid claim that such a major technological upgrade is necessary to assure the practical operation and promised benefits of such transcontinental mega grids.

Concept

The concept of a wide-area "super grid" with centralized control and the concept of small-scale, local and decentralized

are two approaches that are often perceived as being mutually exclusive alternatives. The SSG aims at reconciling the two approaches and considers them complementary and necessary to realize a transition towards a fully decarbonized electricity system. The super grid features would deliver inexpensive, high capacity, low loss transmission, interconnecting producers and consumers of electricity across vast distances. Smart grid capabilities use the local grid's transmission and distribution network to coordinate distributed generation,

grid storage Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to: Space partitioning * Regular grid, a tessellation of space with translational symmetry, typically formed from parallelograms or higher-dimensional analogs ** Grid graph, a graph structure with nodes connec ...

and consumption into a cluster that appears to the super grid as a

virtual power plant A virtual power plant (VPP) is a system that integrates multiple, possibly heterogeneous, power resources to provide grid power. A VPP typically sells its output to an electric utility. VPPs allow energy resources that are individually too small t ...

. The name "SuperSmart Grid" was invented by Antonella Battaglini and used the first time in the position paper for the energy conference in

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

in 2007. In the context of the SuperSmart Grid, advocates use the term "super grid" to refer to a network super imposed on top of local grid networks.

Implementation practicalities

The SSG relies on existing technology. The SuperSmart Grid would employ

high voltage direct current A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating current (AC) transmission systems. Most HVDC links use voltages betwe ...

(HVDC) cables in its first-generation implementation to integrate the European electricity market and possibly connect it to neighboring regions, such as North Africa, and their vast renewable energy resources, such as those that could be unlocked by the

DESERTEC Desertec (Often: ''DESERTEC'') is a non-profit foundation aimed at sustainably and ecologically producing electricity in sunny regions of the world. Sunny deserts are therefore the focus. The energy is intended to be used locally, but also expor ...

& Medgrid project. The SuperSmart Grid would operate 'on top' of the local high voltage AC (HVAC) grids. Existing AC grids would still transmit electricity over shorter domestic distances, but be upgraded to smart grids. Dr Gregor Czisch of Kassel University, has constructed and optimized a model indicating that an entirely renewable electric supply system is possible at 2008 electricity prices.

Initial work

An initial project proposed in 2006 by Irish wind farm developer Airtricity (Formerly Eirtricity) and Swiss engineering firm ABB would provide a chain of undersea cable connections extending from the Baltic Sea southward to Spain and servicing areas between the endpoints. Proponents of the project claimed that this western corridor could be in service as early as 2015. The first segments would provide two 5000 megawatt links connecting a new 10,000 megawatt group of wind parks in the North Sea with consumers in the UK and continental Europe.

References

External links